


blood on her hands

by wordswithdragons



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Zuko, Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, F/M, Katara & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, background sokka, idk how to phrase this but not zutara friendly i suppose, kataang & aang headcanons galore, some mild descriptions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26143207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithdragons/pseuds/wordswithdragons
Summary: Katara kills Yon Rha, and deals with the fallout.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 148





	blood on her hands

**Author's Note:**

> first ever atla fic i have ever written after 11+ years loving the show. here's hoping i didn't screw up too badly

Katara's hands shake.

The rain pours down over her head, icy spikes wedged in the mud. Blood mars the dirt and white ice, splattered over the points of entry. Yon Rha is dead, body pierced and pinned to the ground. The spike had gone right through him. Katara's ears ring but she can't hear the rain. Her own heart pounds and she can feel her freezing fingers, twitch, reaching for the diluted veins in his body, now cut off from life. Somehow, it all feels very full away. All she can think about and picture clearly is the body, and then almost as a fracture in her vision and mind's eye, cleaved in half more cleanly than his chest, memories—the spurt of blood when Sokka had two fish hooks in his thumb and she'd tried to carefully take them out. The smell of fish when she'd helped him gut them. The one time her father had taken both of them hunting and Katara decided she'd preferred midwifery to watching arctic hen-bunnies writhe in snares before her father put them out of her misery.

She snaps back to the present with a hoarse breath, like her body is remembering it can breathe. Reminding her to breathe. Air. Her lungs need air.

It makes her think of Aang and his patient eyes— _let your anger out, and then let it go_ —and then it becomes very hard to breathe. She let her anger out too far and... Yon Rha will never breathe again. Katara almost drops to her knees but that would bring her closer to the _blood_ and the _body_ and—she keels over and vomits on side of the road. She isn't naive enough to think she's never killed before in battle. But to murder someone defenseless, in cold blood, it—

Zuko's voice is a rasp. "Katara?" He sounds uncertainly concerned as he approaches her from behind. Like he wants to help her, but he's not sure what she'll do next.

Honestly, _she_ isn't sure what she'll do next. She bloodbent a (technically) innocent man earlier today. She's never felt this way or this much before. She...

Whirls around with a glare when Zuko's hand grazes her shoulder and throws him off. "Don't touch me!" she snarls, rising. There's bile on her lips and she wipes it away on her glove with the back of her hand. Points a finger at him, rage building the same way it had in the catacombs. _I thought you had changed!_ Now she's changed. And not for the better. "This is all your fault!" she screams.

Zuko takes a step back, confusion and fear in his eyes. Like it's suddenly occurring to him that he's alone with her and she's already been on one murderous rage today. "Katara—"

"You never even _asked_ if I wanted to find my mother's murderer!" she screeches. The rain shakes as much as her hands do. "You went behind my back and got the most awful experience of my life explained you to by Sokka so you could 'buy' my trust! You just _told_ me and now—" Her eyes burn then.

 _But now that I know he's out there, I feel like I have_ no choice _._

A sob tears at her throat and Katara doesn't know what she's mourning for as her rage collapses into tears. Not Yon Rha's life. He was an empty, miserable old man. A monster, even. But this isn't what her mother would have wanted or approved of. How is she supposed to face Sokka and her father now? They won't judge, but she knew what Sokka thought, and she'd cut him verbally with her words. Katara can't even tell if she regrets it, she just...

She's always— _always_ —known who she is and what she wanted. To be a waterbender, to fight, to heal. Learning to bloodbend had broken her, partially, but Aang had helped piece her back together, his arm braced along her back as she sobbed. _You_ had _to,_ he'd said stubbornly and she could see in some ways he was right, even if Aang had said it to alleviate her guilt instead of reaffirming _why_ she'd had to. If she hadn't bloodbent, Hama would have had Sokka _kill_ him, and she can't—she couldn't lose him again, and not for her of all things.

As much as she wanted to say that Zuko had taken away her choice, Katara knew she'd put blood on her hands by her own proxy. She'd murdered someone outright, and she would always have to live with that now.

Zuko doesn't approach her again when she stands up, nor does he really look at her when she walks away from Yon Rha's body without looking back. She hates that she'll know what they put on his grave, if his family can afford one. Any military service likely has a good pension. It feels doubly unfair, then, that she knows his name, and he never knew her mother's. Never had to know. And never will.

Zuko just follows quietly, seeming relieved as they climb onto Appa. He takes the reins and says—the only time he speaks for the duration of their trip back—"I'll take you somewhere safe and quiet," until they touch down on what he calls, "Ember Island." He hovers as she gets down from Appa and sits on the decks stretching out a bit ahead. This part of the shore and beach are quiet as promised, and Katara tries to lose herself in the lull of the waves. Tries to drown out the sound of her heart. It works, a little.

Her heart twists when Zuko doesn't leave Appa's reins and says, "I'm going to go get Aang and everyone else."

She doesn't lift her head as he goes. She just lets her feet dip into the water and swirl it, and while she knows she'll have to bend eventually, for the first time again, since Hama, she feels an active revulsion against it. She'd been gifted with rare healing abilities, and she... It will be a long time before she'll bend again, outside of when she has to for the battles that draw ever closer, with Sozin's Comet in two weeks.

Two weeks will have to be long enough.

Appa lows reach her eyes as she lands and then fast paced footsteps—two pairs, one well ahead of the other—and the air breezes against her back when Aang stops maybe a foot away. Sokka must be behind him; no one can outpace an airbender. Katara swallows hard. Did Zuko tell them what she'd done?

"Katara," Aang says and her heart weighs a million pounds. How will she face _him_ now? "Are you okay?"

"I..." The air rustles one of her hair loopies and she turns around to face him, her voice a quiet croak. His brows are scrunched up in concern, lightly creasing his arrow. Behind him is Sokka and then Zuko, and there's reservation—a glint of unresolved hurt—in her brother's eyes. _Then you didn't love her the way I did!_ She'd insulted Aang, too, but his face is open the way it always is, and it cracks her in two. "I'm a murderer," she gasps hoarsely.

If he didn't know before, he will now.

It's confirmation of exactly what he (and Sokka) were afraid of, and she watches his expression with as much clarity as she can muster. Sokka's face shuts down in a blink, a sea of emotions swirling in his eyes. Aang's face is harder to read, because he seems suspended, processing, but it doesn't seem like _news_. _The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper,_ he'd said. _While you watch your enemy go down, you're being poisoned yourself._ Will he think she's poisoned too? She feels like it.

But then Aang reaches forward and grasps her forearms and presses his forehead—his arrow—the symbol of his people—to her brow, and Katara feels stupid for ever having a moment of fear as she curls into his arms. He's never held anything against her. Not her temper or impatience, or the waterbending scroll, or her fear of returning his affections. Why would this be any different? "I don't care," he says, somehow impossibly gentle, and her hands clutch at his robes as she sobs into his covered shoulder.

Eventually, she quiets and raises her head and meets his steady grey eyes, and he gives her the tiniest of smiles. Because he understands, doesn't he? To have trauma and grief and rage overtake you to the point that you are not yourself, even if his had manifested differently. An uncontrolled, trauma induced Avatar State had been scary for both of them.

"Come on," Aang coaxes, tugging her up by the hand. Blocking Sokka and Zuko from her view; she can deal with them later. "Let's get you a glass of water and something to eat."

There's an awkward interval of Zuko guiding them around his family's old home on Ember Island, but Katara mostly tunes his voice out. Before, when he'd joined them, it was like she'd been hyper aware of him. Watching for suspicious behaviour, hesitation, anything that would indicate danger. She hadn't told Aang of her death threat towards the banished prince, because she knew he wouldn't approve, and she didn't know how to say _I would kill for you_ and have it not reveal too much of her feelings. She couldn't love a boy she might lose. Not again. Not twice.

Now, Zuko's voice is background noise. A stumbling drawl, buffered by silences. He leaves, afterwards, which makes things slightly less unbearable, but Sokka stays as Aang lights the stove with a fire and puts on a pot of water to boil. Sets a glass of water down in front of her. He'd known how to cook more of the plants they'd come across in their travels than she had, thanks to his life before the war as a nomad, but Sokka had been in charge of roasting the meat.

"Shouldn't we talk about this?" Sokka whispers over the clank of the kettle as Aang sets that down too. He sounds close to tears, too, but—she was their mother. Why would it be any less of an emotional ordeal for him, even if their experiences were different?

"Can you search the cupboard for spices?" Aang asks instead and Sokka grumbles while he rummages. Katara keeps her eyes on the wooden table she's sitting at.

"Aang, it's not right," Sokka says, more sharply but at the same volume level as before. "It's—"

"—not what she needs right now," Aang says, more firmly. "Just leave it Sokka. At least for now."

"Fine," her brother relents and Katara's gaze darts up in time to watch him cross his arms over his chest. "For now."

Aang purses his lips and then puts some noodles on too with veggies, an old Air Nomad dish she's seen him cook before, mostly in their apartment in Ba Sing Se and they'd had a real stove for the first time in a _long_ time. Sokka leans against the doorway while Aang cooks and Katara allows herself a tiny sip of water. It's more soothing on her achingly sore throat than she would've expected. She's finished her cup by the time Aang puts the food in front of her, and it hits her how it's been two days, really, at least, since she slept or ate properly. The rations she and Zuko had brought hadn't exactly been filling.

Aang sits across from her, but it doesn't feel like he's watching her. Or at least, like there's no rush. She eats her meal slowly, but she eats all of it. And somehow, with a full belly and out of immediate danger, it hits her how tired she is. This, too, is something Aang has seen before, every night they'd set up camp, or when they were running from Azula and her tank full of dangerous ladies, or camping out in caves in the Fire Nation, or even in moments she'd nap on the back of Appa's saddle while Sokka sharpened his boomerang and Aang steered. Sleepy Katara is a sight he's very familiar with, even before she yawns.

"Come on," he says, getting up and curling an arm around her shoulders. "You should rest."

Sokka glances up once she'd passed through the door and Katara knows a conversation with her brother will come later. He'll at least be owed an apology for her comment earlier. He'll want to know what their mother's murderer was like. He may even want details of how she'd killed him. Her stomach lurches at the thought of recounting it but Aang holds her steady and guides her up a flight of stairs to an equally wooden panelled hallway and bedroom.

There's a window facing the sea and loosely blowing curtains a gauzy pink. When Aang lets go, Katara curls into the thin mattress in the corner with her back to him. He doesn't leave, though, the mattress shifting as he sits near her hip and he reaches for her slowly. She doesn't start when his fingers graze her cheek and brush her hair out of her face and behind her ear and finally, she manages to choke out, "Why don't you _care_?" as she twists around to face him. Of course he should care, he's a pacifist, a monk for spirit's sake and—

Aang blinks but his expression doesn't change as he looks at her. His gentle gaze feels like the perfect, self contained combination of water and rock: steady and ever flowing at the same time. "Do you remember when we first started travelling together?" he asks softly and she nods, although it feels like multiple lifetimes ago. "You and Sokka would still eat meat and er, still do, obviously. And whenever I would go to the Fire Nation, a hundred years ago, my friend Kuzon and I would always have to try and find something for me to eat, because we couldn't go to the main street vendors. But just because my culture doesn't involve eating and skinning animals doesn't mean that yours shouldn't."

She blinks too, her eyes stinging. There's a furious lump in her throat. "But—"

"I never _cared_ about whether you would kill the man or not," Aang continues softly. Because he didn't, not really. Not at his core. His hand moves to her other cheek, fingers still gently grazing. "It was never my call. I cared about what _it would do to you_ , if you did."

"I don't know what to do now," she whispers hoarsely, half muffled against her pillow.

"That's okay." Aang smiles almost brightly, then. "I never know what I'm doing." Katara's lips twitch the tiniest bit. Her eyes hurt less. His tone turns more serious. "And you don't have to do it alone."

She rolls over to face him and takes his hand, giving it a squeeze. Her thumb brushes over the blue arrow. "Thank you," she says and then pauses. "You'll... stay with me?"

"However long you want," he says. She supposes he knows all about staying in one place for hours with his meditating and bending training and general patience. And then, because sometimes it feels like he knows her better than she knows herself, "And I can be with you when you face Zuko again?" Katara finds herself pressing her face to his clothed thigh, his robes soft and smelling comfortingly like incense as she nods. Aang's hand drops back to her hair and strokes it. "Okay," he says softly. "Okay."

* * *

Zuko is a hunched over, guarded mess the next time she sees him. It looks like Sokka talked to him after she talked to her brother, because they stand together while Toph and Suki chat about something off to the side, and the boys are waiting for her when she and Aang approach, her hand on his arm. Having him close has always been a comfort.

He lets her step up by herself though as she turns to face Zuko.

He looks prepared to get yelled at again, even if he sucks in a breath and is the one to speak first. "I'm sorry about the role I played in anything that happened, I—"

"Stop." Her tone isn't sharp but it is tired. "What happened was the result of... a lot of things. I think it's best if things go back to the way they were. You being Aang's firebending teacher and all."

Zuko nods. Aang's the only reason they were ever brought together at all. He can be the only thing she wants tying them together still. "Okay," he says, because he's in no position to argue, and what would he even argue for? They _don't know_ each other. A handful of battles, a commiseration in the catacombs that was still mostly him talking, a few terse weeks at the Western Air Temple hasn't changed that. He doesn't _know_ her.

Their little "life changing field trip" has made that very clear.

And, at least, she knows this strange sort of dent has fixed things. This fallout won't keep Aang from training or being friends with Zuko, which is good. Nor will Katara suspect him any longer, mostly because it now feels like Zuko is too guilty to do anything that could hurt her than he already has. At the very least, they're finished, and can orbit each other in tolerance. It will have to be enough.

(Later, when Katara's biting remarks from before have been replaced with drawn out silence or dull eyed stares, Zuko will eventually vent to Sokka that it _isn't_ all _his_ fault, that Katara made her own choices, and he just wanted her to trust him, doesn't that count for _anything_? _To her?_ Sokka will reply, because Zuko is his new friend but Katara is still his little sister. _No, not really._ )

Later, Katara will curl up back in bed and have Aang join her, and trace the scar on his back with the lightest fingertips. Then Aang will reach behind and take her hands and hold them over his chest, over his heart.

There's blood on her hands, but the Avatar doesn't care.

**Author's Note:**

> a few closing notes about characterization: sokka tends to be more keen on holding katara accountable for things (ie. "the waterbending scroll" multiple times) whereas aang is more chilled since katara almost inevitably figures out her mistakes on her own, too, and he trusts her to do so. sokka is also trying to reconcile his complicated feelings regarding his grief for his mother and what his sister has done.
> 
> aang does not have those same complicated feelings, since while he doesn't support violence, in regards to ozai he always clarifies that it doesn't feel like the right thing for him to do, not that it's a bad thing for anyone to do.
> 
> zuko was also surprised in canon when katara didn't kill yon rha so... that speaks volumes about how he sees her, honestly.
> 
> and that's all, lemme know what you thought in the comments!


End file.
